Healing Systems (and Self) through Golf
The Inner-Outer Synthesis of Sustainable Systems Change
“We can’t address problems at the same level of consciousness that created them.”
– Albert Einstein
What I’m sharing might run the risk of sounding “preachy”, but I’m willing to preach what I practice, sharing my heart’s honest truth and perspective (thus far, until better information comes along) – provided that I’m willing to keep practicing! Minimally, I want to invite you into the perspective that the game of golf itself (along with the green acres and biophysical resources upon which it is played) can bring a global and systemic healing from within the individual player.
The game of golf trains us in the paradigms and mindsets needed to solve global challenges and heal systems at scale. It’s taught me lessons that remain practical, personal, relational, as well as spiritual.
Golf has taught me practical lessons.
As someone who tends to be results-oriented and far too worried about the future, golf teaches me how to embrace the process. I am often tempted to put my wants and desires before my core needs, setting my sights upon unrealistic standards and expectations.
Thanks to the game of golf, I now have at least three priorities above my lofty expectations:
Clarity
Commitment; and
Consistency
Clarity: Especially with my inner work, I set clear and reasonable (not just high) expectations for myself, so that I know exactly where to aim, and I’m not “hiding hazards in the fog”. In the context of sustainability work, this looks like setting clear priorities and scope of work, along with using clear metrics to guide development.
Commitment: Commitment is a great word to describe the golf swing itself. By its literal definition, to “commit” means to “bring together”, and then “let go”. In parallel, whether in personal self-work or external sustainability work, I have found it important to both commit to a process, and to practice a healthy “letting go” of results. For an organization, this could also look like embedding sustainability into the core of its culture and strategy, rather than treating “green” initiatives as merely peripheral public relations tactics.
Consistency: Having committed to clear goals, consistency is king. Grounding this in golf, acceptance comes from expecting variability in results, but remaining committed to the process of improvement. “Aim small and miss small”, as they say. While we can’t expect consistency in results (whether in golf, personal life, or business), we can focus on what little we are able to control. In my opinion, we exercise some free will at least over our attention and perspective (which can then give birth to better aims and processes). Exercising that agency ultimately optimizes our chances of being successful – whether at hitting a target on the golf course, or achieving a sustainability vision.
Golf has taught me personal lessons.
Golf has been the greatest mirror for my self-righteous victimhood and willingness to avoid the truth by blaming externals and making excuses for my shortcomings. Golf requires truth and integrity (at least if the player wants to legitimately improve). As I have struggled to improve my golf game throughout my journey as a player since age 12, I have come back time and time again to the seeming refuge of whining, making excuses, and giving up on myself prematurely, among countless other shortcomings. Each time I do, I then return to the truer safety of accepting responsibility for my results and my process. No one else is to blame for my poor golf round, and my poor golf round is certainly not to blame for my poor attitude! Luckily, I met a world-class mental health teacher (on the golf course of all places), and since then, my awareness of golf as a mental mirror has only expanded.
Golf has taught me relational lessons.
Golf naturally lends itself to practical and personal lessons as a solitary sport, but at a certain point of depth, the personal touches upon the relational and even the global. It was through golf that I discovered a sense of deep connection to nature. I even discovered a deep connection to the full humanity of my playing partners (whether they just joyfully celebrated a hole-in-one or lost themselves in the hell-hole/ego-state of an adult temper tantrum). One of my core personal truths now about relationships is that everyone and everything we perceive as external to ourselves really just represents some part of us longing for connection. That perspective then invites compassion along with connecting our parts into the “whole” (that’s how I would define the word “healing”).
Golf has taught me spiritual lessons.
As a culmination of the practical, personal, and interpersonal insights I have gained from golf, the game has shown me that embracing truth is not merely practical or personally relevant, but that embracing truth is also the most liberating and fulfilling adventure of life and way of being. Truth doesn’t simply encompass the practical, empirical, logical, and objective truths of science, but rather also includes subjective truth into its wholeness. Subjective truths are sometimes impractical, intangible, and illogical, but to deny emotionality and the messiness of life would be like freezing a river to sustain its water supply.
Why do we watch movies or get involved in stories? Is it to measure truth objectively through the lens of a camera, or to experience truth immediately through our senses (that is, outer senses and inner senses)?
Continuing on that note, I’m inspired to share my personal “five lessons” (a la Ben Hogan) that I have relied upon as fundamentals, discovered through the mirror of golf and life:
My Personal “Five Lessons” from Golf (as of Now)
Set clear (and positive) intentions.
Clear goals + committed process + consistently showing up leads to compounding growth. Theoretically (using the limitations of left-brain logic), improving at something 1% every day for a year would lead to a compounded growth rate of 3778% or roughly 38X. Though if logic were all that prevailed, wouldn’t perfectionism prevail? Wouldn’t Bryson DeChambeau win every tournament? Luckily life is messier than that (just look at current world number one Scottie Scheffler’s swing).
2. Integrate logic with emotion.
The inner-outer work of sustainability requires a synthesis – of self-development along with the outer work of developing sustainable models of living as a species. Each of these pathways (one internal, one external), requires yet another synthesis (one that is common to many ancient philosophies and symbols of non-duality or connection): symbolically speaking, the “masculine” doing/discipline/action and external orientation must harmonize with a “feminine” being/feeling/surrendering. Using the concepts of modern neuroscience, we might think of this as connecting the logical left-brain with the relational right-brain. If we neglect either, wholeness suffers (as does “effectiveness”).
3. Cultivate gratitude.
Our socioeconomic systems (particularly in the Western hemisphere of the world) are built upon the shadows of perfectionism and “not-enoughness”. The way we begin to rethink value financially and culturally begins with our appraisal of ourselves – that is, how we value (or don’t value) our authentic needs and expressions of self will be reflected in relationships, organizations, and even civilizations that remain stuck in separateness and lack. Value begins in gratitude. Gratitude begins in the silence of being, noticing, and becoming aware.
4. Orient awareness toward the process itself.
Beyond setting boundaries around clarity, commitment, and consistency of process, this means one thing for me in particular: I have to practice what I preach! And in order to practice, it helps if I love the process of practicing. Therefore, I stick with the practices I enjoy, and golf is certainly one of them. Process-orientation leads to consistent practice, practice leads to embodiment, and embodiment is the most powerful communication of an idea.
5. Re-member connection.
Connection serves practical, personal, interpersonal/relational, as well as spiritual needs (for agnostic and secular folk, “spiritual” just meaning the integration, alignment, or harmony of systems and the needs of their underlying parts).
Connecting with one another to serve a higher purpose of helping life on Earth isn’t just some spiritual “holier-than-thou” intention -- it is literally concerned with the practical survival and thriving of our species into the future. I want to credit Giles Hutchins for his ability to articulate this so well in his work and discourse on the paradigms of connection and separation in our culture. Fixing the world “out there” requires fixing the world “in here” (and that mirror goes both ways as an infinite feedback loop).
Even we “holy” environmentalists get stuck in the illusion of separation by pretending that the Earth is a victim when really we’re the ones endangering ourselves! Victimhood, cynical outlook, and externalizing of inner pain is ultimately self-sabotage in the long-run… as golf teaches us ;)
